Armthorpe Welfare 2-3 Doncaster Rovers

And so the season starts here, beginning as last season did with a run out against local opposition from the Northern Counties East League. After the success of last season’s ‘community fixture’ with Rossington Main, Rovers again made a short trip for their opening pre-season friendly taking on NCEL Premier Division Armthorpe Welfare at Church Street.

Rovers triumphed, but in front of a sizable crowd they were made to work for their win with Welfare restricting Doncaster to a 3-2 victory. In the goals for Rovers were Paul Heffernan, Lewis Guy and James Hayter who secured the win with a second half penalty, but the key aim for Sean O’Driscoll was just to get some of his squad playing again. With the summer sun rendering the Armthorpe pitch pretty hard Rovers rested a number of players including much touted central defender Matt Mills, but there were welcome retuns to action for others. Heffernan, back after surgery and captain Brian Stock both featured and while the latter may have been a little subdued in his performance Rovers fans will, at this stage, just be glad to see him on a football pitch.

Rovers next friendly fixture is a match against Conference side Barrow AFC at Holker Street on Saturday 18th July, which follows a three-day training course in the Lake District. Nice work if you can get it… except the game against Barrow maybe.